If you were to average our articles together, though, next spring’s run would be an average one.

However, Kostow, an ODFW analyst who this year also heads up the joint Oregon-Washington-tribal US v OR Technical Advisory Committee, has emailed out a clarification on all this averaging being bandied about, and it seems Mr. Monroe and I are somehow both right.

“It is sixth largest since 1979, above the long-term average and median, below the most recent 10-year average and about the same as the most recent 10-year median,” she writes.

Kostow also sent out a handy-dandy graph that shows the size of all those returns since 1979, and how 2011 (the red line) may stack up.

(KATHRYN KOSTOW)

But Bill’s not all bad news. He does report that the Willamette springer run “will be close to 100,000 adults.”

I’m not going to get into whether that’s above or below averages or medians or anything else mathematical (except to say that that would rank as No. 4 since 2000), but I will point out that if you add that to the prediction of 91,100 summer Chinook for the upper Columbia — a record forecast — things are looking quite kingy in 2011.